Farmers-to-be can't afford the fields

"A couple years ago ... prices were maybe $3,500 an acre," Mr. Ford says. "At this point they're $4,500 an acre or more. It's definitely dropped off to minimal interest." Those farmers who come in find their hopes dashed when Mr. Ford reveals what their payments would be.

But the consequences of the land boom go well beyond personal disappointment. People concerned about the fate of rural America worry that fewer beginning farmers will only hasten the decline of farming communities.

"We're already having trouble in the churches," says Todd Stewart, an organic farmer in Norfolk, Neb. "Every year we lose more than we gain. It's the same way with businesses and with schools. And a lot of it goes back to the fact that no young farmers are going into farming."

Most young farmers don't start out by buying "ground," as it's called across the Corn Belt. Usually they rent it until they can save enough to buy. But rising land values are driving rents to prohibitive levels, too.

Erik Christian, a 23-year-old agronomy graduate from Storm City, Iowa, says he's frustrated by a reluctance to take new farmers seriously. "I've talked to everyone and his brother to see if they have any ground to rent," he says. "You never hear back from them."

To be sure, people are still becoming farmers. But most are the sons and daughters of farm families who benefit from their parents' land, equipment, and connections. Yet even for them, say experts, land prices can make it harder to enlarge an operation and make it support two families instead of one.

A more subtle change is also thwarting new farmers. Until recently, many farmers rented land on shares, splitting their crops with the landowner. Sharecropping helped ease new farmers into the business because it required less money up front and spread out the risk. But in recent years landlords, increasingly absent, are insisting on riskier cash rents.